Nottingham Spirk takes the offensive in finding talent

Small companies are getting more clever to make sure they get the people they want, according to a Wall Street Journal story that leads with an anecdote from John Nottingham, co-president of product design and engineering firm Nottingham Spirk in Cleveland.

Mr. Nottingham tells The Journal that he was planning to hire a new design manager eventually. “But when he heard a talented fellow alumnus of his design school was looking for a job, he wasted no time: He created an opening and hired the man right away,” the newspaper notes.

Under normal circumstances, Mr. Nottingham might have posted the opening on the company's website or LinkedIn page. But in this case, he tells The Journal, he couldn't afford to wait.

"Someone good was available, and we just grabbed him," Mr. Nottingham says.

With the labor market remaining weak, “such back-channel methods are becoming the rule, not the exception, when companies hire,” the newspaper reports.

“Many open jobs are never advertised at all, or are posted only after a leading candidate — an internal applicant or someone else with an inside track — has been identified,” according to the story. “Sometimes, as in Mr. Nottingham's case, a hiring manager creates a new position ahead of schedule to accommodate a favored prospect.”

While this "hidden" job market frustrates applicants, “companies point out that it is perfectly legal to hire without advertising a job or to advertise one almost certain to be filled by an insider,” The Journal reports.

Mr. Nottingham says his 40-year-old firm has built up a reliable work force mainly through word-of-mouth hiring.

Stripmatic “used to assign a worker to each of its stamping machines pounding out metal tubular car parts,” according to the story. The workers would look for jams inside the machines that cause costly shutdowns, called "smashups."

“Then the recession struck, and Stripmatic had to cut staff and scramble to make do with less,” the AP reports. “To monitor the machines, it turned to electronic sensors and got surprisingly good results. Smashups happen only once or twice a year now, instead of four per month before, and the presses are running 2-3 times faster.”

President Bill Adler tells the AP, "With a human, you're going to get distracted, you're going to feel the monotony of (the work). You're not going to be 100% successful."

Stripmatic is doing 20% more business than before the recession, “with a third fewer employees,” the story concludes.

Hot product in cold days

The excellent Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams from Columbus, which has a shop in Chagrin Falls and significant retail distribution in Northeast Ohio, has a hit on its hands for flu season.

The sorbet contains a blend of honey, ginger, orange juice, lemon juice, cayenne pepper and Maker's Mark bourbon. (The latter ingredient is trace enough to be kid-friendly, the company says.)

"This year, with the early start of the (flu) season and it being particularly nasty, the flavor is sort of having its moment," Jeni's spokesman Ryan Morgan tells The Huffington Post.

The story notes that Jeni's owner Jeni Britton Bauer got the idea for the flavor — a Jeni's staple since 2004 — from a heated-up cough syrup concoction of whiskey, honey and lemon juice that her mother and grandmother used to make.

Sounds great, enjoy the sorbet, but let's be clear — this is not an actual treatment for the flu.